Kaiser Permanente is investing $200 million in the next two to three years in affordable housing and the fight against homelessness in eight states and Washington, D.C., as part of its efforts to improve health by addressing social issues. "As a family physician, I've provided medical care to the homeless, and have seen first-hand the impact that living without a home can have on someone's health," said Kaiser's Chief Community Health Officer Dr. Bechara Choucair.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday voted to advance a bill that would reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, a law originally passed in 2006 that aimed to improve how federal, state and local governments respond to disease outbreaks, natural disasters and attacks. The new version includes provisions to advance development of influenza vaccines and medications and to boost research on antibiotic resistance.

Individuals who started a study with A1C readings of more than 5.9% but less than 6.5% had more than eight times the risk of developing diabetes over about four years as those whose readings fell below 5.7%, while risk was about doubled for those who started with A1C readings from 5.7% to 5.9%, according to a study in Diabetes Care. Researchers evaluated data from more than 34,000 people without diabetes who were participating in an employee wellness program, and they found that nearly 13% of those with the highest A1C readings developed diabetes during the study, compared with less than 1% of those with lower readings.

The American College of Nurse-Midwives and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Committee on Obstetric Practice addressed the treatment of postpartum pain in a Committee Opinion published in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The document said untreated postpartum pain is linked to increased risks for women and recommended that nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic therapies be included in pain management strategies.

A study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that diagnoses of invasive lung cancer among US adults ages 30 to 54 declined from 1995 to 2014, with men seeing a sharper decrease than women, resulting in a higher incidence of the disease in white and Hispanic women.
Men were historically more likely than women to be affected by the disease, and although the reasons behind the shift are not clear, experts said men and women are prone to different forms of lung cancer, and women who quit smoking see their risk decrease more slowly than men.

The FDA asked companies to stop selling over-the-counter teething pain products that contain benzocaine and warned it would take regulatory action if the products are not removed from the market. The agency said there have been more than 400 cases of methemoglobinemia, which compromises the blood's ability to carry oxygen, linked to benzocaine product use, including 11 incidents involving children younger than age 2.

A PSC survey of 1,600 US workers found 25% linked financial worries to health problems, 40% said they were a distraction at work, and 15% said they caused them to miss work. Companies are offering financial wellness initiatives to address employee concerns, including Eastman Chemical's program that provides employees with regular access to personal financial advisers.

In patients with cancer who were receiving chemotherapy, a six-month walking program reduced glycemic levels and treatment symptoms compared with a control group given information about exercise benefits, researchers reported at the Oncology Nursing Society's annual meeting. People in the walking group also had less depression and fewer sleep disturbance symptoms.

A Better Sleep Council poll found that women are more sleep deprived than men despite 84% of females indicating the importance of sleep to their health. Women were more likely to let children and pets share the bed, which was a barrier to uninterrupted sleep, and also more likely to have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep.

HSHS St. Mary's Hospital Medical Center registered dietitian Stephanie Lazzari created a gardening class, "Harvesting Hope," to teach cancer survivors about the value of a plant-based diet and how it can reduce the risk of disease. The goal is to get patients to include more fresh produce in their diets, and vegetables harvested from the garden will be donated to foods banks in the Green Bay, Wis., area.